A New Era, INTERNET, Notebooks

 

A few quiet words about INTERNET-ing and our song with that name in 45 seconds.

I am no YOUTUBER, but a few things like this talking to camera around the MUSIC VIDEO SHORTS I made couldn't be too bad, right? The sound of the DJI MIC MINI is way better than just using the camera.

Since recording this video I canceled our website hosting and DNS I had for 20 years and am now  just using this BLOG and X, mostly. On Facebook and others too. I was going to close our website sometime, but had our hand forced in the last week. 

The whole MUSIC VIDEO SHORT referred too:

The changed YouTube algorithm treats these differently now, thinking I should try long form content again.  The same videos on X and Facebook get 3+ times the views. 

The Interneting-ing on Bandcamp.  Mostly there for my own entertainment.  Not a place ordinary music listeners visit at all, who always just stick to their Spotify.  You have to really be an  Independent music purists to care. To me, Spotify is a pay to maybe be played site and I am not playing that game.

I took some timelapse video at the Mall and made a very different HD video of the song too:

Other Things

Another great Billy Corgan guest with  Scott Ian of Anthrax. 

Have one Anthrax CD. Never played any of their stuff enough to know it well. More familiar with his  SOD ( STORMTROUPERS OF DEATH). Knew he was just a rhythm guitarist, but cool that he doesn't drink and has an interest in a variety of no-metal music. An interesting guy, and he married MEATLOAF's daughter!

Daughter showed me a large series of illustrated books on many subjects in the bookstore. This THE ANATOMY OF SUMO WRESTLING PICTURE BOOK looks interesting.

I enjoy Sumo, but no expert on all the goings on. Or what the refs fan like thing is called. I could get to learn the Japanese terms I don't know, or have missed in the commentary if I get this. A big job to read it for me though. I watch sumo with the Japanese commentary and follow most of what is said, but I couldn't put a number on it.  Depending on what they are talking about, it varies between 100% to maybe 75%.  Partly my hearing and partly sumo specific vocabulary.

But I find watching British Bake Off Season 12, I can't catch what some of the contestants say either,  And they are all speaking, nominally, English!  Many movies and shows are the same, and find English subtitles very useful.

Notebooks: To change things around, I thought I should carry a small A6 sized note book when out from now on. I have put Google Keep on my phone as well. Just jot down ideas and draw what ever comes into my head, so I don't forget anything. Something different from my home A5 spiral bound Diary.

I bought to try a few cheap A6 sized notebooks, but found most of them lacking in paper quality and durability. And the pages don't lay flat. MUJI has a series with an optional canvas cover, but not very nice, the cover means the writing surface has a step in it. The MUJI 0.5 ballpen makes a thicker wet line compared to my preferred UNI 0.5 JETSTREAM pen.  

On Amazon, the Chinese MOLESKIN copy at almost 1/3 the price of the real thing seems okay so far. Has a tree embossed in the leather hard cover and a pen holder. Yet to see how durable it is when carried around in my shoulder bag. 

But I also thought I should get a real MOLESKIN just to check. They do seem very nice. Expensive though!

I do like my A5 spiral bound notebooks I use for my diary. The pages lay flat, they have a heavy cover, paper is good and available in lined, doted and plain.  Only problem is the wire spiral gets mangled and doesn't open properly if you take it out and about in a shoulder bag.  

I didn't know that these A6 notebooks, the makes and way people use them for journaling, were such a big thing on YouTube till this week.  Part of it seems a reaction to smartphones and a way to get away from the world of doom scrolling.  I can understand that.

Yet to see if carrying a notebook and not having a traditional website anymore works for me. But A NEW ERA anyway.

Life without our own website is kind of like retirement. Something I haven't done before. In many ways it is a relief to not have to deal with it and the SPAM and bots any more.

With the changes to Internet use in the last 3 years in general, I don't think not having one will make any difference to me now. So few people looked at the webcomics or rock opera I had there, and other things I was most interested in now, that I may as well not have had a website.  

I was so busy in 2020/2021 with people wanting illustrations and graphics. The opposite now, and I expect into the future. I also don't want to spend my time in retirement doing illustrations for others anymore. 

Not being able to renew our 20 year old domain name as I was now retired with an expired registered business number was what forced the end.  Having moved our website to 2 previous domain names since 1995, I was very aware it took years to be findable in search engines, and with AI and no-click-through search now, it never would again if starting from scratch. There was no point in continuing with a new domain name.

A VIDEO BLOG on YouTube is probably more popular as a creative outlet for many recently, but I'm not really that personality type to enjoy doing that very often.  

We will see.

The statistics on this blog indicate it is mostly bots stealing the content of it by a very large margin. And me.

Australian Nepotism & Jobs for The Boys

I have no way of telling if Nepotism is far worse in Australia compared to other countries or not, or just that is the way much of the world works. Only looking back at my life now do I realize how much I saw of it around me, despite me being told often, it isn't what you know, but who you know. The 2017 book GAME OF MATES goes as far to say that Australia is much more like Columbia than America, Britain or Europe with its insiders in business and government. 

So it was a surprise to see the RAYGUN BREAK DANCE disaster wasn't that kind of insider opportunism.  

Does show another issue where THE BEST may not get to be involved in something in Australia due to arbitrary rules and timing.  

To even attend the selection events for the Australian Breakdance team, you had to already have a Passport. An expensive thing now, something like A$450. And the announcement of the selection events and them being held was very short.  

A good way to eliminate young, excellent break dancers, but not well off.  

But it is like a recent Rick Beato video where most artists that made it have rich families supporting them.  Taylor Swift and The Slash being in a long list proving the theory. 

Our Comic Books

Here is the link to download all our free .cbr formatted comic books.  I use the YACReader. Have considered making them PDFs too, but I find the ,cbr format more useful.

They all still have the now dead website .com.au url and watermark on them and it is just way too much trouble to change that.  But one comic in particular I will put here too:

Where The Smoke Comes Out

46 pages. Name is from the inscription musician Peter Gabriel put on an Album he gave me. Inspired by the Historical/Autobiographical work SHOWA, by Shigeru Mizuki, Has historical and personal memories of looking what influenced me to end up where I did. From Sydney Australia, to Japan, to Australia and back to Japan, with 20+ years in the electronic Musical Instrument development Industry, then not. Not an Autobiography at all, just a few memories.  Combines Narrative Captions, comics and Black & White photos mostly.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

The significant problem with most posts on Social Media, in the FOR YOU or RECOMENDED streams:

Adrian Bruce ©2026 KYOTO, JAPAN
(Previously of now defunct artandtechnology website)
Blog: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/
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